A police officer pulled a man over for speeding and had the following exchange:
Officer: May I see your driver's license?
Driver: I don't have one. I had it suspended when I got my fifth DUI.
Officer: May I see the owner's card for this vehicle?
Driver: It's not my car. I stole it.
Officer: The car is stolen?
Driver: That's right. But, come to think of it, I believe I saw the owner's card in the glove box when I was putting my gun in there.
Officer: There's a gun in the glove box?
Driver: Yes, sir. That's where I put it after I shot and killed the woman who owns this car and stuffed her in the trunk.
Officer: There's a BODY in the TRUNK?!?!?
Driver: Yes, sir.
Hearing this, the officer immediately called his captain. The car was quickly surrounded by police, and the captain approached the driver:
Captain: Sir, can I see your license?
Driver: Sure. Here it is. It was valid.
Captain: Who's car is this?
Driver: It's mine, officer. Here's the registration.
Captain: Could you slowly open your glove box so I can see if there's a gun in it?
Driver: Yes, sir, but there's no gun in it. Sure enough, there was nothing in the glove box.
Captain: Would you mind opening your trunk? I was told there's a body in it.
Driver: No problem. The trunk was opened; no body.
Captain: I don't understand it. The officer who stopped you said you told him you didn't have a license, stole the car, had a gun in the glovebox, and that there was a dead body in the trunk.
Driver: Yeah, I'll bet he told you I was speeding, too. (The Good Clean Funnies List, 12/6/2002; www.PreachingToday.com)
I love that story, not only because it’s funny, but it also illustrates why so many people lie. They lie to get themselves out of a precarious situation. They lie, because they fear rejection or retaliation of some kind. Or they lie, because they think the truth will cost them something.
People lie to protect themselves, but it very seldom (if ever) works in the long run. If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Genesis 12, Genesis 12, where we see what happened to Abram when he lied to try and protect himself.
Genesis 12:10 Now there was a famine in the land. So Abram went down to Egypt to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land. (ESV)
Times were tough, so Abram stepped out of the will of God for a while. He left the land God had given him and went down to Egypt. He had intended to be there only a little while, until things got better, but things only got worse.
Genesis 12:11-13 When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to Sarai his wife, “I know that you are a woman beautiful in appearance, and when the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister, that it may go well with me because of you, and that my life may be spared for your sake.” (ESV)
In Bible days, a man could be killed for his wife, especially in enemy territory. So Abram encourages his wife to lie to protect himself. Besides, this was not an outright lie. According to Genesis 20:12, Sarai was Abram’s half-sister. They had the same father, but not the same mother. Abram’s lie was half true! But as we shall see, a half-truth is still a whole lie.
Genesis 12:14-15 When Abram entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful. And when the princes of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh. And the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. (ESV)
This is where she told him she was Abram’s sister to protect Abram from being killed. Abram encouraged Sarai to lie to protect himself. And for a while, things seemed to go well, very well, in fact!
Genesis 12:16 And for her sake he dealt well with Abram; and he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys, male servants, female servants, female donkeys, and camels. (ESV)
Abram got rich off of Pharaoh, because Pharaoh was actually paying Abram a dowry. Pharaoh was making arrangements to take Sarai as his wife, but this bound Abram to an obligation from which he could not extricate himself. And what seemed to be a good plan turned out very badly for Abram.
Just a few verses earlier (vs.2), God had promised Abram many descendants, but that promise was now in jeopardy. Worse than that, God’s promise to bless the world through one of Abram’s descendants was now in danger of failing, as well. That descendant, of course, was the promised Messiah, who was to come and deliver people from their sins.
What seemed to be a “good thing” in the short term could have become a “very bad thing” in the long run. Oh, Abram gained some wealth in Egypt, but he lost so much more.
Warren Wiersbe lists five consequences of Abram’s sojourn in Egypt and his lie to protect himself. 1st, there was lost time. The weeks that they were away from the Lord were lost and could not be regained.
2nd, there was lost testimony. Abram could never witness to Pharaoh of the true God after deceiving him.
3rd, when they finally came out of Egypt, they brought Hagar with them. Hagar was Sarai’s Egyptian maid, and her descendants (the Arabs) have caused the Jews (and now the world) no end of trouble to this day.
4th, they also brought wealth out of Egypt, and this wealth helped cause the dispute between Abram’s cattlemen and Lot’s cattlemen.
And 5th, Lot developed a taste for Egypt while they were there. The sad thing is Abram’s disobedience and deceit adversely affected his family, especially his nephew Lot. Later, Abram was able to take Lot out of Egypt, but he could not take Egypt out of Lot. In the next chapter, when Abram gives Lot the choice of a place to live, he chooses the wicked cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, because it was “like the land of Egypt” (Genesis 13:10). It was a choice that led to the moral and spiritual ruin of Lot’s entire family, not to mention most of their deaths when God judged the cities for their wickedness.
When we step out of God’s will and lie to protect ourselves there are serious consequences, not only for ourselves, but for our families, as well.
On September 3, 1989, Varig Airlines Flight 254 was at Brazil's Maraba Airport preparing for takeoff. Under normal circumstances the hop to nearby Belém would only take 48 minutes. Captain Cézar Garcez consulted a computer-generated flight plan and read the number 0270 which corresponded to the magnetic heading from Maraba to Belém. But Garcez inadvertently dialed 270 into the Horizontal Situation Indicator. Minutes later, flight 254 took off and climbed to an altitude of 29,000 feet. Instead of heading northeast toward the Brazilian coastline and the city of Belém, the plane turned west and headed straight toward the Amazon forest.
Captain Garcez sensed something was wrong. At this point in the flight plan he expected to be able to have visual contact with the Belém airport. Frustrated, the captain executed a 180-degree turn, not recognizing the absurdity of his due west/due east course. Having been notified by the flight attendants that the passengers were wondering what was happening, Garcez lied. He announced there was a power failure at the Belém airport, and that he would circle the area waiting for the power to be restored.
Despite not knowing where he was, Captain Garcez informed the Varig flight coordinator on the ground he estimated the plane would be landing in Belém in five minutes. He then ordered the flight attendants to serve a fresh round of drinks to the bewildered passengers.
At 7:39 p.m., when the flight was 68 minutes overdue, the first officer identified the problem and started to explain to the captain his mistake. But the captain dismissed his explanation. Refusing to ask for help, he began counting the minutes until the plane would run out of fuel. All the while he searched the ground hoping to find an airport where he could land the plane.
About an hour later, out of fuel, Garcez made a remarkable crash-landing in total darkness in a dense tropical forest. The plane was 700 miles from the intended destination. Although all six of the crew survived, 13 of the 48 passengers were killed. Both Captain Garcez and the first officer had their commercial licenses revoked. They never flew again. (The Mercer Island Reporter, 12-12-02; www.PreachingToday.com)
All the pilot had to do was admit he had a problem and get some help. And so often, that’s all we need to do: just admit we have a problem and get some help. Instead, so many of us try to cover up our problems and pretend everything is alright. But that only makes things worse. It hurts us, and it hurts those closest to us. Please, whatever you do…
DON’T DEPEND ON A LIE to get you out of trouble.
Instead, tell the truth. Be honest, and…
DEPEND ON THE LORD.
Trust God to take care of you. Lean on the Lord, not on a lie, because a lie is treacherous, but God is trustworthy. God is faithful even when we are faithless. We can count on Him even when we have failed ourselves. Please, don’t count on a lie to save you. Instead, trust God to deliver you. Depend on God to take you out of “Egypt” (so to speak) just like He did for Abram.
Genesis 12:17-20 But the LORD afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, Abram’s wife. So Pharaoh called Abram and said, “What is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her for my wife? Now then, here is your wife; take her, and go.” And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had. (ESV)
God delivered Abram and Sarai from Egypt. It was his only way out! Abram could not save himself or his family, so God had to. God sent plagues, and Pharaoh said, “Get out!”
A very similar thing will happen to Abram’s descendants 400 years after this. They will have been slaves in Egypt, unable to save themselves, but God will send 10 plagues and Pharaoh will say, “Get out!”
God delights in delivering His people from impossible situations. So trust Him; depend on Him. Don’t depend on a lie.
Bill Lear was devastated when he learned that two Lear aircraft had crashed under mysterious circumstances. He had developed the plane to offer business travelers a fast, economical alternative to the airlines. At that time, 55 Lear jets were privately owned. Bill sent word to all the owners to ground their planes until he and his team could determine what had caused the crashes.
To Bill, a Christian, risking the loss of more lives meant far more than the adverse publicity that grounding all Lear jets might generate in the media. He protected his customers and counted on God to protect the reputation of his corporation.
As he researched the two ill-fated flights, a possible technical problem emerged. Bill experimented with his own plane to recreate the same problem. He nearly lost control of the jet in the process, but found that a defect in the plane's mechanism did exist. All 55 planes were fitted with a new part, eliminating the danger.
Bill spent two years rebuilding the business, but Lear jets were soon soaring again, carrying thousands of business people safely to their destinations. (Stephen Arterburn, The Power Book; www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s the way to handle it when you have a problem. Count on the Lord to protect your reputation, not a lie, not a big cover-up. Trust God to take you out of a seemingly impossible situation. Depend on God to take you out of “Egypt” (so to speak).
And Depend on God to take “Egypt” out of you. Trust God to change you from the inside out. That’s what He did for Abram.
Genesis 13:1-4 So Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had, and Lot with him, into the Negeb. Now Abram was very rich in livestock, in silver, and in gold. And he journeyed on from the Negeb as far as Bethel to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, to the place where he had made an altar at the first. And there Abram called upon the name of the LORD. (ESV)
Abram returned to his tent, to his altar, and to his God. Abram’s relapse of faith became a return to faith, and he and God were together again.
Do you long for intimacy with God? Then let God do for you what He did for Abram. Stop living a lie and let God bring you back to Himself.
Pastor Kevin Kim, in a recent sermon, described an Ash Wednesday tradition in his church. He said, “Every year at our Ash Wednesday service people have an opportunity to write their sins on a piece of paper, fold the paper, and then pin it onto a wooden cross as a reminder of Christ's forgiveness. One year a family came to the service, and they walked through the worship experience as an entire family. When they came to the confession station, they explained to their 6-year-old son the practice of confessing their sin and writing it on the paper.
“So when they all grabbed a sheet of paper and started writing their confessions, he did the same. Remember, he is 6, so he started writing with large, clear block letters. The rest of his family wrote their confessions and then carefully folded the sheets so no one could see the sins they had written down. They intentionally left their names off of the paper as well. Then they walked to the cross and pinned their ‘sins’ on the cross.
“This 6-year-old wrote, ‘God, I'm sorry because I lie.’ But then he signed his name, and he refused to fold it. He walked to the front and pinned it to the cross.
“His parents asked, ‘Why did you put your name on it? Don't you want to fold it up so no one can see?’
“Then he said, ‘I wrote my name on it because I want everyone to see it. Because if they know it was me, maybe they can help me stop.’” (Kevin Kim, from the sermon “Total Nakedness”, August 2012; www.PreachingToday.com)
That little boy understood what confession is all about. It’s not about trying to hide your sins. It’s about being honest concerning your sins so you can get help to stop!
The Bible says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. [But] if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8-9).
The Bible also says, “Confess your sins to one another… that you may be healed” (James 5:16).
Proverbs 28:13 says, “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”
There’s mercy, there’s healing, and there’s cleansing when you stop living a lie and start telling the truth first to God and then to others.
In his recent book on Grace, Max Lucado talks about his brush with alcoholism. He enjoyed beer as a teenager, but gave it up when he realized that alcoholism had haunted his family ancestry. He says:
I have early memories of following my father through the halls of a rehab center to see his sister. Similar scenes repeated themselves with other relatives for decades. Beer doesn't mix well with my family DNA. So at the age of twenty-one, I swore off it…
Then a few years back something resurrected my cravings… At some point I reached for a can of brew instead of a can of soda, and as quick as you can pop the top, I was a beer fan again. A once-in-a-while… then once-a-week… then once-a-day beer fan.
I kept my preference to myself. No beer at home, lest my daughters think less of me. No beer in public. Who knows who might see me? None at home, none in public leaves only one option: convenience-store parking lots. For about a week I was that guy in the car, drinking out of the brown paper bag.
No, I don't know what resurrected my cravings, but I remember what stunted them. En route to speak at a men's retreat, I stopped for my daily purchase. I walked out of the convenience store with a beer pressed against my side, scurried to my car for fear of being seen, opened the door, climbed in, and opened the can.
Then it dawned on me. I had become the very thing I hate: a hypocrite. A pretender. Two-faced. Acting one way. Living another. I had written sermons about people like me – Christians who care more about appearance than integrity. It wasn't the beer but the cover-up that nauseated me.
[So what] happened with my hypocrisy? First I threw the can of beer in the trash. Next I sat in the car for a long time, praying. Then I scheduled a visit with our church elders. I didn't embellish or downplay my actions; I just confessed them. And they, in turn, pronounced forgiveness over me. Jim Potts, a dear, silver-haired saint, reached across the table and put his hand on my shoulder and said something like this: “What you did was wrong. But what you are doing tonight is right. God's love is great enough to cover your sin. Trust his grace.”
After talking to the elders, I spoke to the church. At our midweek gathering I once again told the story. I apologized for my duplicity and requested the prayers of the congregation. What followed was a refreshing hour of confession in which other people did the same. The church was strengthened, not weakened, by our honesty. (Max Lucado, Grace, Thomas Nelson, 2012, pp. 89-91; www.PreachingToday.com)
Are you struggling with some sin in your life? Then don’t hide it any longer. Be honest about your sin and be strengthened by that honesty.
Don’t depend on a lie any longer. Instead, depend on the Lord and trust Him to take you out of “Egypt”. Better than that, trust Him to take “Egypt” out of you as He did for Abraham.
In Nikos Kazantzakis's novel Christ Recrucified, there is a scene in which four village men confess their sins to one another in the presence of the Pope. One of the men, Michelis, cries out, “How can God let us live on the earth? Why doesn't he kill us to purify creation?”
“Because, Michelis,” the Pope answered, “God is a potter; he works in mud.” (Rick Ezell, The 7 Sins of Highly Defective People, Kregel, 2003; www.PreachingToday.com)
Oh my dear friends, please stop trying to fix the problem on your own through lies and deceit, and let God work on you. Let Him take the mud of your life and transform it into a masterpiece to His glory!
Let this be your prayer as we close our service:
Have Thine own way, Lord.
Have Thine own way.
Thou art the Potter, I am the clay.
Mold me and make me after Thy will,
While I am waiting, yielded and still. (Adelaide A. Pollard)
